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Sunset Playhouse's Into the Woods
Into the Woods
Sunset Playhouse describes their upcoming production of Into the Woods as “a new take on Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s cockeyed fairytale,” and aptly so. By combing through many fairytales’ colorful characters and putting them together into a fascinating story about a young couple who find out that they can’t have children because of a witch’s curse, Sondheim and Lapine created a delightful, Tony Award-winning musical. Characters emerge from our own childhood memories and bookshelves—from classics like Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, Cinderella and more. As for those Tonys, in 1987, Woods won several, including Best Score, Best Book and Best Actress in a Musical.
Sunset Playhouse is going “into the woods” an extra mile with their upcoming production, of which there will be two. The first is the adult-cast version as part of their professional Furlan Auditorium Production season; the second will be Into the Woods Jr. as part of their Children’s Theater Series with casting derived from their very own School for the Arts. (John Jahn)
Into the Woods runs March 1-18 and Into the Woods Jr. runs March 18-19 at Furlan Auditorium, 2533, 700 Wall St., Elm Grove. For tickets, call 262-782-4430 or visit sunsetplayhouse.com.
12 Ophelias
More a play with songs than an actual musical, 12 Ophelias by American playwright, translator, songwriter and editor Caridad Svich (b. 1963) centers on William Shakespeare’s character (Ophelia) from his immortal Hamlet, but this is not your traditional build on the Bard. Here, Ophelia rises from the water and dreams of things such as…Pop-Tarts. She’s not in Denmark but in a neo-Elizabethan Appalachian setting. In 12 Ophelias, Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, doesn’t run Denmark as queen but rather runs a brothel. Hamlet, himself, is not so much a prince as “a rude boy.”
Directed by Bill Watson, this UW-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts production of 12 Ophelias is thereby described as “a play full of wonder, sensation and seduction” taking place “in a hard-knocks Appalachian community” during “a summer full of sex, drugs and rock and roll.” (John Jahn)
March 7-11 in the Mainstage Theatre of UWM’s Theatre Building, 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd. For tickets, call 414-229-4308 or visit uwm.edu/arts/event/12-ophelias.
THEATRE MORE-TO-DO
PostSecret: The Show
Want to hear a secret? Have one to tell? PostSecret: The Show was created by Internet phenom Frank Warren who set up a secret-telling blog open to one and all to share their most intimate secrets with the world. Warren, in collaboration with an award-winning team of theater professionals, assembled an immersive journey through some of the juiciest and most human secrets he was told into a most fascinating crowd-sourced narrative. Thursday, March 1, in the Wilson Theater at Vogel Hall, 929 N. Water St. For tickets, call 414-273-7206 or visit marcuscenter.org.
Winnerz Take All!!
The Highland Community Players hold a reputation as one of the city’s wildest theater groups. Operating from MPS’ parent-directed Montessori charter school, Highland Community School, the group creates original experimental children’s plays such as this one about kids’ TV game shows that questions how far we’re willing to go to come out on top. Three dozen fourth, fifth and sixth graders comprise the cast but the audience is very much part of the plot. Performances are 6:30 p.m., March 7-9 at at Highland Community School, 1706 W. Highland Ave.
